


The Gathering of Pieces

by DistantConstellations



Category: Persona 5
Genre: ???? I Don't Personally Think So But I've Been Told, Angst, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers Past The Casino, Spoilers for True End
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 11:51:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13146114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistantConstellations/pseuds/DistantConstellations
Summary: Akira's not sure what to do with the remnants Akechi has left behind in his life. So he begins to write.





	The Gathering of Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Or  
> The Gathering of Pieces, So As Not To Fall Apart  
> (You Stole Away My Heart)
> 
> Written for thetiffopotamus on Twitter for the 2017 Shuake Secret Santa Exchange!

Akira’s journal sits patiently on his desk. He rubs the pliant leather absentmindedly, thoughts swirling.

Usually, when his head was this much of a mess, he’d talk with Morgana but. It’s not that he doesn’t trust him (the opposite actually); his friends are all willing to listen, and he’s sure they’d make time for him despite being torn up about the same thing, but they weren’t always the most understanding. Sometimes, when it’s really rough, it’s easier to pour his heart out to the uncaring pages of his probation journal. It has no expectations, and it can’t judge, though he will have to destroy quite a few entries before giving it Sojiro.

Yes, he decides, flipping open the cover and grabbing a pen, the journal is the best choice. It’s unbecoming to see your leader falling to pieces, after all. He’s held it together for so long: he isn’t going to slip up now.

_Akechi is gone. Though we were fighting literally minutes before, he saved us…is it possible he had a change of heart?_

He immediately frowns, scratching out the figure of speech, but draws a blank on what to replace it with.

_Did we reach him? His past explains so much, but it doesn’t make what he did acceptable. I am still…angry. But did he really have a choice?_

Akira pauses, mulling over a line, hesitant to pen it down, make it real. Confront the thought.

_I could’ve been him just as easily._

He writes some more, but he keeps going back to that line. Eventually, unable to calm the whirring of his worries with his feeble attempt at organization, he goes to bed.

It’s a restless night.

 

Some days later, he finds himself in front of his journal again. It is far later in the night than the last time – speaking to Morgana is not even an option, as he’d gone to sleep hours ago. Earlier, against his better instincts, he’d snuck out alone, heart pumping at every creak of the floorboards, every stuttered breath from his friend at the head of his bed, at the notion of being caught. He couldn’t explain it: he’d needed to see that place again.

A mistake.

Akira had torn through the halls and cabins of the cruise ship, slunk through every room that was open to them, spoken to every shadow that he could mollify, but he could not reenter the engine rooms.

The muffled noise of his boots against the carpeted floors had been a relief at first, but it turned stifling. He couldn’t make a sound, no matter how he stomped and ran, couldn’t get anyone to look at him, couldn’t hear anything over the chatter of shadows that never had to stop to _breathe_. Worse, he couldn’t help – the distant ringing of an alarm echoed in his head, a deep blaring that wouldn’t _stop-!_

He’d yelled. The sharp silence had let him hear the sound of his labored breathing, a reminder that he was still here, before the guards had descended. His carelessness had him surrounded before he could blink.

Though he could fight off the guards easily enough with his friends at his side, it was almost too much alone, and he’d had to end his search prematurely to limp back home, pride battered, and heart aching.

Now, he sits before his journal, and tries to calm down.

Rather than write, he flips through his previous entries, hoping to find something to numb him out.

What he finds instead is a small entry, script cramped and rushed, an afterthought more than anything.

_17/11_

_Was doubting plan for a bit there, but reassured it’s our only option. Went to palace to run through “escape route” one last time; found Akechi there, slaughtering every shadow on the floor. Stronger than he has any right being. No way he’s new to the Metaverse. Nearly caught his eye, so not sure if he stayed long. Suspicious as hell._

He remembers that afternoon; he’s not sure he could ever forget the way Akechi ravaged every shadow that charged up to him, how he’d hid behind corners to ambush guard after guard, preferring to use his saber over Robin Hood. Akira had only walked in on what must’ve been the tail end of hours of combat; Akechi’s white uniform was torn, and his face was flushed with exertion. Every time he yelled as he landed a difficult, deadly shot, or pierced an opponent’s weak point, his voice had seemed hoarse.

Entranced, Akira had misstepped, and the noise had Akechi spinning around to stare at the spot Akira had been seconds ago before diving into a crevice.

The look on his face had been so lost.

He thought nothing of it at the time - it was another strike against Akechi, that’s all – but looking back…

Was he trying to forget the plan he’d have to put into motion the next day? Was he blowing off steam? When Akira thinks of yelling, deep and guttural, desperate to be heard by someone, _anyone_ , the mix of fear and satisfaction as he struggled against the guards surrounding him on the cruise ship, he thinks he understands.

 

 

Shido’s palace is a blur. After the engine room, with nothing holding them back, they sweep through any challenge with sheer aggression. Akira himself remembers anger, white hot, as he spoke to cognitive Shido, found himself wondering if maybe Akechi had the right idea of it, it would only take one squeeze of his trigger finger-

He didn’t let himself speak. He didn’t trust himself not to throw all their morals to hell for one moment of satisfaction. The fighting that followed Shido’s boasting was easier to handle; this was familiar, if tedious, a little tricky, this test of endurance and controlled fury.

They win. Trudging back to LeBlanc together to celebrate, he takes a moment, slipping into the attic while the others are downstairs, to write another entry.

It was meant to be an end. A pretty bow tying off all these confused feelings – the frustration, the helplessness, the _hurt_ , the clench of his heart when he held his tie.

_Finally stole Shido’s heart. Only a matter of time til the change shows. I’ve kept my promise._

To Akechi, rings emptily, implicitly.

It was done.

There was nothing tying him down to Akechi anymore.

The thought is sudden, upsetting, not a pebble dropped into a pond so much as a 50 ton weight heaved into already troubled waters. Akira finds his breath coming quicker, hands clenching so tight on his pen he snaps it in half. He tosses it aside, scrambles, shuffling through the journal, searching for something, anything, to keep it together, to keep Akechi relevant.

There’s nothing. He knows that. Still, he lets out a breath in one huge gasp-

And begins to tear it all up.

Every entry that has his name. Every page that mentions him even in passing. Anything that reminds Akira of him at all. It all has to go, if he can’t stay, then he needs to leave for good, and get out of his sight, out of his _life._

Soon, there is a pile of paper in front of him. The journal looks as torn up as he feels, a mess of corners upon corners, jagged edges and jumbled thoughts. He holds up a sheet to rip it into pieces, so he’ll never have to read it again.

 

 

He _can’t_.

 

 

He’s sad, isn’t he? That’s what this feeling is. But why is it he can’t bring himself to cry either?

 

Akira doesn’t know how long he stays there, legs folded beneath him neatly as he sits on the floor, journal on the brink of slipping from his fingers, surrounded by white on white on dark brown wood. It’s long enough for Haru to come poking her head into the attic.

“Oh. There you are.” She comes in, steps light, and her demeanor soft as always, settles in to kneel next to him without touching the pages.

They sit there in silence for a few minutes. Akira appreciates it. He’s not sure if he’s up to questions and well-meant sympathy right now – he’s tired. Exhausted.

Eventually, when his breathing has evened out a little, Haru gently gathers the sheets of paper into as neat a pile as she can manage, tugs the journal out of his hands and puts it to the side. She rubs his shoulder right after, small, soothing circles.

“Were they looking for me?” Akira sighs.

“Mhm. But they can wait a minute. You’re upset,” she casts an eye over the pile, tightens her fingers almost imperceptibly on his shoulder, “over Akechi?”

“Upset is one way to put it.”

She hums at that, retracting her hand. Shifts a bit where she sits, gets comfortable. She grabs one of the sheets scattered on the ground, somehow a perfect square, and begins lining up the edges.  
  
“Mourning is hard. Sometimes, there’s nothing to do but move forward, even when you don’t want to. You dig your feet into the ground, and drag your heels but the world moves on and suddenly….” She makes a crease with gumption. He gets the point.

Akira isn’t sure. How can he be sad for Akechi, after all he had done? After what he had done to _her_ , how could he have her comfort him like this-

Haru must see his hesitation on his face, because she immediately elaborates. “I wasn’t sure how to feel, either, at first. When Father died-” her voice breaks, and she takes a second to swallow. Tugs on the paper, gives it shape. Another crease. “When father died,” she repeats, a sad echo of herself, “I felt lonely, horrified, lost….but also relieved. I cried for days, but more for what we could have had than what we did. For the way we were, a long time ago.”

“The reasoning behind it doesn’t change the strength of the feeling. And I can tell. You’re unhappy. I know what that’s like.” Having finished fiddling with her paper, Haru presents an origami crane to Akira.

“Even so. I try to be productive with my emotion. Sounds like something a CEO would teach his daughter, doesn’t it?” she giggles, “But it’s a good lesson, I think. Take something painful and make it beautiful. See?” And Haru bops the crane on its beak, sets its wings bobbing, unbalanced. She laughs again, quietly, and opens his hand to put the bird into it.

“We’ll be downstairs when you feel better. Take your time. We did well today.” With that, she’s gone as quickly as she came.

Akira takes a moment to think over what she’d said, puts her origami carefully on top of his journal before grabbing his own entry.

_“For what we could have had.”_

Silently, solemnly, the writing on the note in his hand begins to blur, ink running with the tears dripping off his nose and chin.

His hands shake but.

Akira begins to fold.

 

 

“It is said that folding a thousand paper cranes is a prayer of sorts. One crane for each year they are rumored to live. A thousand cranes for the wish of a lifetime.”

He folds a crane.

_Akechi seemed so…..sad, sitting there. I’d been there when he’d poured his heart out, recounting his tragic childhood in a couple of lines and with barely a pause. It was nothing compared to him sitting at that counter, quietly commenting that he wasn’t really popular at the moment, mouth popping the p as though it had personally done him harm. He looked lonely._

He sits at the bar, in the corner seat no one ever used. Sojiro is out running errands, as he can’t until everything’s blown over, and they’ve had no customers. He’s alone. Akira swallows, puts his finished product to balance on the books, and starts again.

 

 

Sheets folded into squares carefully stored in his pocket, he sits with Ryuji in the café, wasting another day waiting for the election results. Ryuji is flipping through a comic he brought over, but it doesn’t hold his interest for long.

“Folding cranes? Heh, I did that with mom once when I was younger. Can’t remember what I wished for, to be honest, though at the time I thought it was the most important thing. Folded nonstop but gave up halfway. Mom had warned me not to be half-assed about it but I still ended up with janked up fingers and only four strings of cranes!” Ryuji has put his book aside, and Akira can _see_ the moment he can’t keep the curiosity down.

“And yours?” He doesn’t want to answer, so he pretends he can’t read Ryuji like the open book he is, intentionally misinterpreting him.

“My fingers are fine. See, look?” And he pauses to swat at Ryuji’s hand that had been attempting to stealthily flip a note over from his neat little stack. Ryuji retracts the hand easily enough, but not the question.

“Ah, no reason to be like that!” And at Akira’s pointed silence, he groans, and clarifies. “You know I meant your wish.”

Akira doesn’t answer, merely pauses as he makes a crease, oh so delicately. Ryuji stares down at his hands, where the new fold reveals only two words, a name, each stroke so angry and hard set, confused. He lets out a breath, settles deeper into the booth.

“Fair enough.” He can be sensitive, sometimes. The comfortable quiet returns, but Ryuji doesn’t pick up his book again. Just sits, and watches Akira, until his next comment comes out uncharacteristically soft.

“We were similar, I think. I mean, I’m just a no good punk and he was loved by everyone, and yeah that riled me up when I thought he didn’t know shit about, well, anything, but. If I had to get by without my mom, and I knew my old man,” his faces scrunches up, as though resisting the urge to spit, “was behind it….I might do something I’d regret too.” The confession loosens something in Akira’s heart he didn’t know was wound up in the first place.

“Makes him more human, to think that polished pretty boy was a ball of anger at this world’s bullshit lack of justice,” Ryuji says, picking up his comic, clearly feeling a tad raw. Awkward. But he offers once last quip before he lets Akira be for the day, as though not saying it wouldn’t be right.

“Made him one of us. In the end.”

 

 

Futaba sprawls out in the attic with him, folding her own little origami animals. Rather than cranes, she’s going through a how-to book Sojiro must have bought her to help kill time back before they met.

“I never know how to think about him. It’s confusing. But,” she sighs, pausing to flip the page. The bottom of the book has obvious shelf-wear, but the pages are crisp enough to cut her finger. She scowls when it does so, shaking her hand out to fight the sting, before finishing her thought.

 “I think he would’ve come with us, given the time. Taken your hand,” she offers, “if it was you asking.”

She doesn’t have to elaborate. They both know who she’s talking about. Her nonchalant, carefree air doesn’t hide her fidgeting leg, or the way her eyes can’t seem to find a place to rest. He doesn’t call her out on it, too curious as to why she’s pushing the topic when it clearly isn’t easy for her.  

“How do I know? Hm,” Futaba shrugs, and the blanket he had perched on her shoulders goes tumbling off her.

“I know what it’s like to get stuck in your head, thoughts spinning round, each worse than the last. What it’s like to be that angry, too. If he got the chance….well, that’s what I like to think.”

She scrunches her brows together as she selects one of the many patterns before her to start on – Akira glances at the book open on the table – a fox. He nudges over a simple red print.

 

Akira takes a break from his cranes to make her a black cat. She beams back at him.

 

 

He folds a crane.

“Each of these was one of your probation journal entries that involved him, right? I didn’t think you knew him that well, to have this many already.” Makoto tentatively picks up a bundle of cranes, looks at the empty white wings, the black ink diluted gray and having run in some areas, investigates the tears in some of the cranes’ heads.  He carefully strings his latest one up, oh so carefully, so he can tie off the end with a bead.

“I didn’t.”

 

 

 

He folds a crane.

 

 

 

He folds another.

 

 

 

Akira’s run out of entries, so he takes to writing down errant thoughts.

_I wonder if Akechi ever watched this show as a kid._

_He would’ve pulled off that outfit much better._

_What would he have thought of this waiting….would he have been all nerves? Or tense anticipation?_

After that, simple wishes, stark against the pristine white sheets of paper.

_I wish we could’ve gone here together._

 

They reveal Shido for what he truly is. Or rather, Shido does that for them. It doesn’t matter, though; no one believes them. Or worse, they do, but they don’t care.

_I wonder if this helplessness is what he felt too._

_I wish….._

Soon enough, he runs out of those, too.

 

Before they head into Mementos one last time, a desperate bid for action, to change the world spiraling out of control around them, he ties and counts all of his cranes. It is calming, the familiar rustling of paper, working with something small and delicate.

There are 999, lying in 25 perfect strings. Well, almost perfect, except for one last one.

Though he’s posed to write, pen hovering above the sheet, he finds he doesn’t have the words. He sits until the others are calling to him -

“We have to leave now, Joker! We don’t have time to waste!”

     - but the paper remains white. He shoves it into his bag, and runs down the stairs anyway.

 

It feels heavy when he faces the Grail. It taunts him, a reminder of all the wishes he’s made, and doesn’t that make him one of the very people the Grail claims to represent?

When the Grail leaves, and Lavenza prompts him to seek out the others, he ignores her. Just for a moment. He goes to Igor’s desk, and, after he waves his hand in permission, borrows his blue quill. He is tired of writing wishes, so he writes the truth instead, and the brilliant azure ink is vivid after days of white.

He folds one last crane. Lavenza walks over, and seeing it sitting in the palm of his hand, smiles.

 

“Have you started a senbazuru?”

“Finishing one.” He corrects, deftly going through the motions he knows by heart.

“A thousand cranes….you must be quite practiced.  Is it that you desire happiness and good luck? You may require it, with what you are about to face.”  Lavenza’s face is downturned with sympathy, but not pity, and she takes the crane for a moment to rub her thumbs along the wings. For a second, her face lights in a simple childish joy, before that too is gone. She puts it back in his cupped hands as though bestowing a treasure.

Akira shakes his head, softly. "It's not that. I believe in us."

“Then what is it that you wished for?”

He does not respond but to put it into his coat, carefully, to avoid crumpling it beyond recognition.

 

 

During the moments he thinks it is all over, feeling the pressure of fighting a god, his hand lingers over his pocket. The crowds cheer. He forces himself back up.

Killing a god is surprisingly simple. He remembers facing Shido, the intrusive temptation to squeeze his trigger finger and put him down for good. It might be why, though it’s pointless, he lifts his own gun, aims, and shoots with Satanael.

It’s cathartic, and he feels cleansed. Free.

 

The aftermath is what’s difficult. Joy turns to sorrow as Morgana stands before them, only a few feet away but a whole world apart.

"The whole world is a product of cognition...not just the Metaverse. It can be freely remade. The same goes for you and everyone else. Soon a new world will come. One where mankind isn't held captive. The world will shine brightly as long as you hold hope in your hearts.”

Ever the helpful, cheeky guide, Morgana continues to give them encouragement, as though he can’t get it out of his system fast enough.

“Remember....there's no such thing as the "real" world. What each person sees and feels. Those are what shape reality. This is what gives the world infinite potential.”

It reminds Akira of curling up in the attic late at night, comforting each other, and this more than anything makes his chest go tight.

“Even if you feel that only darkness lies ahead, as long as you hold hands together, see it through as one, the world will never end! The world exists within all of you...!”

 

The world is disappearing in tendrils of white light, and Morgana is fading away. Still for a moment-

A rush of paper cranes, the rustling of their wings louder than a roaring river, swallowing him whole. He thrusts his hand into them to make way, and catches one.

As he struggles to lift his head against the flock, Akira sees a blue light. Lavenza waves from within the doorway to the Velvet Room. She points to his hand, and mimes unfolding the paper.

A whiteout blizzard, he's overwhelmed.

 

 

Akira opens his eyes to Shibuya restored. The others cry over Morgana's disappearance, and while his heart is heavy, he is...confused. His hand is clenched around the crane from earlier. Slowly, gingerly, he opens his fist and the crane, to see the familiar ultramarine ink of the Velvet Room.  It’s shining.

_He deserved better. To try again, atone. To live._

_I wanted to live with him._

His truth.

 

_"The whole world is a product of cognition.....not just the Metaverse. It can be freely remade…._ _Remember....there's no such thing as the "real" world. What each person sees and feels. Those are what shape reality. This is what gives the world infinite potential."_

 

The paper slip drifts to the ground, but Akira can't be bothered to pick it up. He's already running. His friends cry out for him, startled, and he hears them, but -

He needs to get to National Diet Building. There's something he needs to check.

 

 

 

"And that's when you found me, half-dead and unconscious in an alley near the Diet."

Akechi is still pale, having yet to recover from his stint in the hospital and physical rehab. A near fatal gunshot wound to the chest would do that, Akira supposed.

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure you’d be there, and I’d run in before to find nothing, but.”

“But you needed to see it with your own eyes. You thought something had changed.”

“Hadn’t it? You’re here now.” Here being the attic of LeBlanc. It is both a place he’s seen Akechi in a hundred times before and a place he never though to see him again. It’s surreal.

And with that opening, Akechi strikes, asking the question that clearly had been weighing on him. “How?”

“I’m not sure but. Well. You disappeared in the Metaverse, a world based on cognition, on desire. We accepted you were gone, but we didn’t actually know what happens to someone who disappears-“

“Dies. You can say it. It’s the truth.” He is surprisingly blasé for someone discussing his own death, tilting his head, eyes glinting.

“Is it? I think the reason you’re here is because I refused to accept it, in the end. When Mementos and reality mixed, we lost our place in reality, but we eventually earned it back. Maybe something similar happened to you? We never saw your body – we assumed you were dead from the silence. From Futaba reporting there was nothing she could sense. But from the moment we heard a gunshot, we had expectations….” Akechi doesn’t interrupt him so he continues, feeling more and more like a hopeful naïve fool the longer he speaks.

 “The public thought you were missing, and to us you were “lost”, so all I had to do was “find” you. Reality is also shaped by cognition, you know, especially after all the,” he gesticulates, twitching his hand in circles, “mixing.”

Akechi shakes his head, and lets out a huff of laughter. “What twisted logic. I think you would believe in anything that meant I could have survived.”

“Yes.”

The candidacy seems to shock him. He breathes out, slowly, and gives him a tentative smile.

 

“I couldn’t accept that, when I first woke up. I trusted you, more than anyone else, but you weren’t there, and I had so much time, laying there day after day. I always wondered why? Who would want me around that desperately, if not to take me out of the world themselves.”

“The others missed you.” He knows it. He saw it when they spoke, each trying in their own way to soothe Akira’s hurts.

“The others pitied me. But you,” he goes over to the strings of cranes hanging docilely in the corner of the bedroom, flight finished, purpose served, “you _missed_ me.” He makes the wings of one flap back and forth for a moment, before unhooking the entire bundle. Lifting it up, he raises it towards Akira.

“I woke up with these in my hospital room instead of you. Because you had _turned yourself in_.” His voice has a strong note of bitterness, a frigid air he hasn’t heard from Akechi since the boiler room. Akira refuses to be shamed for what he did, though. It was the right thing to do.

“You were hardly in any condition to go to court. And it was Christmas. Consider it a gift from me to you. Ho ho ho. And it turned out alright in the end! The great thief kept the detective prince himself from going behind bars, what a plot twist!”

“From getting found by the dregs of Shido’s forces, you mean.”

He forces his smirk to hold, but he knows Akechi sees the way he trembles as he smoothes the sheets of his bed, takes the bundle from Akechi, and lays it down.

 

Akira changes the subject.

“How was it, living here? Comfy? I liked it when I was here.”

“Odd. This still feels like your space,” he nods at the shelves filled with mementos of his friends, “but that wasn’t bad. Just odd.”

“I could say the same now,” Akira says, fingering the robin’s egg blue curtain Akechi’s bought to match his sheets, and eyeing Akechi’s own souvenirs on the shelf. There is something pleasing about seeing their things mixed into one room, a domesticity that tickles his heart. Though they’re only sharing the attic for a bit before Akira goes back “home”, he doesn’t think he’d mind it being longer. He says so.

The look Akechi gives him is…contemplative. He holds Akira’s gaze, only darting down for a moment, before sitting down on the bed with him. He leans against the wall, moving the origami bundle in the process.

“Haru said,” Akechi starts, then seems to catch himself, “Okumura said you wrote something about me in each of these.”

“Mhm,” Akira hums noncommittedly, ears going a bit red.

Akechi undoes the knot holding the bead to the end of one string, pries a crane from the senbazuru, looks pointedly at Akira, who nods his approval. Akira prays it isn’t anything too telling.

“ _’He would’ve pulled off that outfit much better.’_ ”

He lets out a relieved breath immediately.

“Hm? Is there something embarrassing in one of these? I mean, you could say that one was, but I won’t make fun of you for stating the facts.” Akechi gently teases, purposely fixing his posture to gain some odd inch over Akira, stretching his legs out to look long and slim. It’s a joke, but it hits him that Akechi is here, lounging on his bed, looking stupidly pretty, and his blush blooms from his ears to colonize his whole face.

He tries to play it off.

“Maybe? I wrote quite a lot, it’s hard to remember everything I said. And in my defense, the outfit was this red hoodie white jean combo. Much more casual than what you usually wear, so maybe it would’ve looked ridiculous, but. I always thought red was your color,” he attempts to grin, but aborts the idea quickly when he feels his face heat up even more.

Akechi immediately looks down to pick another crane, but Akira doesn’t miss the scarlet tinging his cheekbones. At least they matched (red does become him).

“I-Is that so.” The stutter makes the question into more of a statement, and he’s delighted to find that Akechi seems positively _awkward_. Rushing to open the origami bird in his hands, Akechi fumbles, and then softly says, “Well, seems like we’ll just have to read every one then.”

 

“ _‘I wish we never entered that place.’_ “

The teasing warm atmosphere is instantly gone. Still, Akira sits, and watches Akechi open one crane after another, sees him go through the scattered, desperate wreckage of Akira he’d left behind in a matter of hours.  Sometimes he reads one aloud, and they laugh, or Akira explains the context of the note, but most of the time it is Akechi studiously, methodically, making his way through the senbazuru, while Akira waits.

999 messages later, Akechi straightens out, and gives Akira A Look.

“I know. Lost the last one, in the scramble after everything.” And he’s gathering the strings and beads, feeling naked, exposed. Like his soul was in those notes and now Akechi can see down, down, into the darkest parts of him with just a glance. Akechi hasn’t looked away, gaze steadfast, eye contact almost too intense to hold. Akira’s growing convinced that maybe he can-

“No, you didn’t. Okumura grabbed it. I have it here.”

 

His heart kickstarts in his chest.

In the sea of black and white around them, the blue of the ink of the note in his hand practically glows.

“I read it whenever it felt…..pointless. Overwhelming.” His gaze hasn’t wavered, and he grabs Akira’s hand, delicately, like it was glass, fragile and precious.

“Did you mean it?”

Akira’s pulse is a thundering noise in his ears, and he knows it then- “The notes were all thoughts, questions, wishes I had when things seemed bleak.” -the meaning of his final note, and the last emotion he couldn’t find the strength to look in the eye. “That one, though. It was the note that led me to you. It’s my truth.”

And Akechi is laughing, bright, clear, happy. His hand is gripping Akira’s like he’s afraid he’ll lose him, like this is all a dream. “I want to live with you, too.”

The unspoken: “I want to live _for_ you.”

He never could bare to face it, Akira thinks, but it seems Akechi has found his own truth in Akira’s eyes. Akechi has always been the stronger of the two of them.

Akira kisses Akechi on the bed they share in the attic of Leblanc, one cold winter night.

It seems he did get his wish, in the end.

As they fall onto the bed, breathless, ecstatic with the concept of a future, Akira hears the rustling of a thousand paper cranes.

He smiles.  

**Author's Note:**

> For tiffo: I'm not going to lie, I really struggled to fit in one of your prompts (I was aiming for hurt/comfort, but who knows if I hit the mark) and in the end I ended up with....this? I hope you enjoy it even a little, even if it wasn't what you were expecting!
> 
> And to all my other lovely readers: I hope you also enjoy this to some degree, and happy holidays! I expect to be posting again before the end of the week, if you've any interest in that haha!
> 
> If anything struck you as grossly out of character, I'd be sorry, but I wrote this in a two day blur with minimal rest so honestly I'm not sure if I care at this point? Apologies in advance.
> 
> EDIT: Quick disclaimer: I know y'all are smart and probs figured it out but yes that spiel in the end that Morgana says was word for word from the game.


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